Thread: changing business from mowing to shrub/gardening

20 years in now and I am trying to change the focus to doing shrubwork and gardening as in take care of everything accounts. I got it down as how to price for mowing and shrubwork but It seems like $60 an hour is really expensive to do stuff like weeding and etc. I have a few accounts right now that I do almost everything but I just don't know how to price everything. I am thinking maybe just bill for a certain number of hours extra per week or what they agree on and do what's necessary. any suggestions?

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"our task must be to free ourselves..by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty" ALBERT EINSTEIN

"non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other livings beings, we are still savages. THOMAS EDISON

20 years in now and I am trying to change the focus to doing shrubwork and gardening as in take care of everything accounts. I got it down as how to price for mowing and shrubwork but It seems like $60 an hour is really expensive to do stuff like weeding and etc. I have a few accounts right now that I do almost everything but I just don't know how to price everything. I am thinking maybe just bill for a certain number of hours extra per week or what they agree on and do what's necessary. any suggestions?

$60/hr for weeding is a lot. That's why you need to sell them on chemical control where you do a pre-m say 3x/yr and then spot spray with roundup as needed.

Gardening work like pruning and what not i don't think $60/hr is outrageous but you need to know what your doing. Billed hours works well on large properties imo. I would give a weekly price on smaller places that won't require a lot of hours.

I work by myself and don't have app license. hopefully weeding will be at a minimum but general upkeep on shrubs and general plant maintanance are what I am hoping to do mostly and mowing. pretty skilled on all three

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"our task must be to free ourselves..by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty" ALBERT EINSTEIN

"non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other livings beings, we are still savages. THOMAS EDISON

I would stick with just mowing, a 60$ mow and blow will likely only bring 70 to 75$ if you add trimming and bed maintance. I rearly pull weeds, spray them or hit them each week with the string trimmer when there small.

$60/hr for weeding is a lot. That's why you need to sell them on chemical control where you do a pre-m say 3x/yr and then spot spray with roundup as needed.

Gardening work like pruning and what not i don't think $60/hr is outrageous but you need to know what your doing. Billed hours works well on large properties imo. I would give a weekly price on smaller places that won't require a lot of hours.

Agreed on the whole post. As usual.

Pre's make me a good bit of profit, keep the places looking nicer and free up a lot of time for me to charge people for the good stuff (tree work, sprinkler repairs, selectives....) IME, its easier to charge top dollar for that type of stuff than weeding. Weeding can be done by kids, Illegals and monkeys. Pruning roses for outward growth, rigging down dead tree limbs, and rebuilding an ASV, not so much.

I'd look into getting my QAL if I were you. It was 50$ and about 3hours total (drive and testing)
IDK if the testing for pesticides is different where your at, but its comically easy here. The (Q) Maintenance and gardeners lic. Has questions like
What's a granular?
Which of these is PPE?

Are you charging less to mow, or are you using equipment that cost 25$/ hour to operate?

Honestly, neither.

I'm hitting my hourly rate for mowing, with older equipment. I barley mow anything. Most of my work is gardening, which has barley any equipment/fuel cost, but pays almost as well as mowing hourly rate wise.

I'm in Oakland county MI though, and we have some uber wealthy people in the area. Our work load on the high end grew as the bigger companies crashed because of the economy.Posted via Mobile Device